Where good taste, clear and distinct ideas, and graceful modulations tend to be viewed with lowering suspicion.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

numbers game

... the task before us is the introduction of a real state of emergency.Benjamin #8.

Volcker also understood that financial markets need to be regulated. Reagan wanted someone who did not believe any such thing, and he found him in a devotee of the objectivist philosopher and free-market zealot Ayn Rand. Stiglitz #1

Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Eco #3.

...when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... Source concealed by the New York Times.

When repeal of Glass-Steagall brought investment and commercial banks together, the investment-bank culture came out on top. There was a demand for the kind of high returns that could be obtained only through high leverage and big risktaking. Stiglitz #2.

"Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style."W

...the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death. Eco #11.

The flood of liquidity made money readily available... But it should have been clear that we were living on borrowed money and borrowed time. Stiglitz #3.

During the evening of the first skirmishes, it turned out that the clock-towers were shot at independently and simultaneously in several places in Paris. Benjamin #6.

The rating agencies, like the investment banks that were paying them, believed in financial alchemy...Stiglitz #4

Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons -- doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise. Eco #12

The administration talked about confidence building, but what it delivered was actually a confidence trick. Stiglitz #5

The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the “emergency situation” in which we live is the rule. Benjamin #8.